


in between all the talk, all of what's meant to be, maybe I'll meet you there

by MFLuder



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman: Last Knight on Earth (Comics 2019), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Apocalypse, Background Character Death, Bottom Dick Grayson, Court of Owls, Crushes, Domestic, Future Fic, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, M/M, Pansexual Character, Pansexual Dick Grayson, Past Relationship(s), Possessive Behavior, this got real sappy at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: It's the end of the world as the capes know it. Humanity gave into doom and the Hall of Justice has fallen. In a moment of grief, Dick gives into his own weaknesses; the next morning shines light on his misdeeds, though, and he ultimately rejects Damian. A shattered world and an Omega-controlled city aren't the only factors keeping them apart, but Damian has claimed Dick as his own and the al Ghul's aren't easily dissuaded.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Damian Wayne
Comments: 4
Kudos: 128
Collections: Robin Christmas Exchange 2019





	1. Book One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elareine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elareine/gifts).



> You do not need to have read _The Last Knight_ to fully get this, though there are a lot of references that will slide on by if you haven’t. At the time of writing this, Book Three wasn’t released; all Omega references will be Jossed (Snyder’d?) by the time YOU read this, though, so keep that in mind, please. See notes at the end if you want the very cursory primer on this comic 'verse.
> 
> ETA: So wow, when I said Jossed...BLKE went HARD Joss and not where I was expecting (except the Omega "reveal"). Cool, cool. Think of this as an AU of an AU.

It’s a cold and rainy night in Blüdhaven when there’s a sharp, hounding knock on his door. Dick has just gotten in from patrol, body too tired to stay out; each night since The Debate has been long and sometimes terrifying. He’s twitchy, anxious, like a thought just out of reach of his consciousness, like a storm on the horizon. He still can’t believe Clark is _gone_. It’s Doomsday all over – but worse, because it wasn’t a monster or an alien this time. It was humans.

He’s about to comm Bruce and the Cave, check in with Tim, when the knock makes him pause. 

Something is wrong. He knows it now, feels it deep in his bones. He continues the call to the Cave, even as he moves to the door, looking through the peephole.

“Grayson,” says the voice outside his door. 

He’s never heard that tone in Damian’s voice before. It’s filled with anguish. Dick’s stomach drops.

He opens the door and drops the comm link in his hand when Damian literally flings himself at Dick, as he hasn’t done since he was eleven. He doesn’t fit anymore; instead, his body mass subsumes Dick’s, even as he seems to shrink, his head fitting against Dick’s waist the way it had when he was little, as he drops to his knees in front of him.

He is silent, but trembles in Dick’s hold, and he realizes Damian’s mouth is gasping in heavy quiet breaths, drool wetting Dick’s armor as he cries.

Damian. _Crying_.

Dick drops to his own knees, body protests barely noticed, his entire attention focused on the boy – the man? – clutching to him like Dick is his only lifeline between him and the ground.

“Damian, Damian. What happened? Tell me what’s wrong.” he says, wrapping his arms around the boy’s shoulders, trying to keep his voice calm, even as panic grows inside him.

It takes five minutes of him clutching Damian back for the dark head to lift and stare at him with cloudy and red-rimmed jade eyes. There’s snot glistening under his nose.

“Father is dead.”

The declaration hits Dick hard, and he finds himself losing his balance, crashing into a sitting position on the floor from his knees, dragging Damian with him. He blinks at Damian, not sure he trusts his ears, even as a pit forms in his stomach.

“That’s impossible,” he says.

The silence on the comm, laying haphazardly forgotten on the hardwood, bolsters Damian’s statement. Bruce would have answered by now. They’ve stayed in close contact since it all went to shit.

But maybe he’s just out, busy. Or maybe Alfred…

Damian stares at him, stronger now in the face of his disbelief. “They tore down the Hall of Justice. It’s gone. It’s not just Superman, anymore.” His fist clenches. “I wasn’t there. I never thought—”

Dick sees the anguish again and he cups Damian’s chin. “None of us did. He’s Bruce. He’s _Batman_. Come on, he must have gotten out. He always—”

Damian shakes his head harshly. “I saw. A gun. No Superman and only one Flash. They weren’t fast enough.”

“Medical attention, though—” he tries to start, and Damian only shakes his head harder.

He taps his WayneTech watch and plays a video. It’s from someone’s shaky iPhone. Dick can’t tell if they were recording because they wanted to _see_ or because, like a car accident, they couldn’t look away. If maybe they felt too helpless to do anything. After all, with Batman dead, what could one person who thought _justice_ do?

When it’s over, Dick closes his eyes. There’s no coming back from that. The way the mob just—

He cuts his thinking off, switching to protective mode.

“We have to get to the Cave, Damian. I can’t believe you came here, why didn’t you just comm—”

“I wasn’t _there_ , Grayson,” Damian hisses, and his fist beats Dick’s chest. He did that when he was younger, too; little eleven-year-old fists driving into Dick, throwing tantrums, when he didn’t get his way. It hurts more, now.

He’s able to still the fist, though, same as he’s always done, clutching it to his chest until Damian settles. Unlike then, Damian is stronger now and could easily pull away from Dick, but he doesn’t seem to want to. He lets himself be calmed. His head falls back to Dick’s chest. He watches as his breath flutters the hair on top of Damian’s head – calming himself with the scent of the boy, the way he always smells of cinnamon, despite the bitter smell of fear sweat underneath it.

He smells of something else, now, too. Musky, rich. A new cologne? His smell invades Dick’s nose as much as his body encompasses Dick. It’s heady and Dick feels himself drowning.

“I wasn’t there, either. If it’s your fault, then it’s equally mine. I’m supposed to have his back,” he says, fervor in his voice. He presses he cheek against Damian’s hair. “I still…he _has_ to have a contingency. He always does. Fuck, they broke him once and he’d made a backup _personality_ …”

Dick doesn’t know how long they sit there, tangled up, clutching one another out of grave sorrow and disbelief. The city remains quiet around them and none of his alarms are tripped, so he resigns himself to staying there. The comm’s silence is deafening, though Alfred eventually shuts it off, tapping Morse code for “Blackbird down” before he does. The confirmation breaks their own silence.

“Stay in Blüdhaven, tonight,” Dick says, his hand running idly through Damian’s dark hair. He suspects its more comforting to him than Damian. He tries not to focus on how Damian is pressed up against him, bulk hidden under the casual clothes he’s wearing, but present for his arms to know, for his hips to feel. “Let me keep you safe.”

“I need…” Damian trails off. He tilts his head, gazing up; his green eyes shine in the light from the window. His hand though, brown and graceful, clutches at Dick’s arm, rises to touch his face, turn Dick’s face down towards him. Their lips are a mere breath’s space away.

Dick moves his head back, not entirely out of reach, but enough of a gesture that Damian stops his movement, though he doesn’t stop the sorrow and desire that mixes in his eyes. They bore into Dick’s.

“Damian, what—? No, stop. You don’t want this. You’re upset—”

“I am. There’s a hole inside I’ve never felt before. Not when my grandfather died; not when I thought _you_ had died.” He leans in, lips barely brushing against Dick’s – not a kiss, but too close to _not_ be. “But I do want this. I have, for a long time.”

Dick shakes his head, trying to get the sudden roar of blood and panic and want to stop. Damian’s flirted with this before, taunting, teasing. He always figured it was practice; Dick was safe, an outlet. But the way Damian is suddenly surging in his arms, moving to straddle him, to cover him with his mass; it’s not at all about teasing anymore. 

But Dick knows how confusing it can be, to look up to a mentor, to see them sexually, to find _yourself_ feeling sexual. He spent a year or two as a teen pining after Bruce before realizing he’d misplaced his feelings on the man. He also knows what grief does to a person; he’s had that kind of sex with Babs, with Kory. It’s comforting, yes, but never as fulfilling as one expects it to be. 

Damian doesn’t want sexual comfort. He’s missing his father. His feelings are tumbled. Damian doesn’t _want_ Dick.

He’s so young.

Damian, though, obviously doesn’t agree. He’s leaning down back into Dick’s space, his mouth grazing his ear, nibbling it between words, between reading Dick's mind. “I know you consider me too young. Transferring, perhaps. Grayson, I’m anything but a child and you have always been mine.

“I’m your Robin.”

Damian’s words are confident, but Dick can hear the hitch in his voice, the lingering mucus coating his throat from his earlier tears. It makes his voice husky, deep. It also reminds Dick why he’s here.

He gently pushes Damian away, though in hindsight, he’s not sure if it’s worse to have Damian against him or Damian’s piercing gaze upon him. His eyes are still red, his face almost blotchy, his lips chapped.

He’s never looked so beautiful.

Damian reaches out and takes Dick’s right hand, the one that had been playing with his hair, and brings it to his body, to his crotch. Slow enough that if Dick were in his right mind, he could stop it, Damian presses it down against himself. He’s very obviously hard.

Dick licks his lips and does his best not to look down, but his hand still cups, grips – giving himself away.

Damian’s head rolls back and his chest puffs out, pressing himself harder to Dick, their bodies touching from legs to shoulders, Dick’s hand on Damian’s clothed cock, Damian’s fingers digging tight into the meat of his arm. The movement is one slow sinuous roll. He pulls back this time, not letting Dick flinch from his eye contact.

“Take me to bed, Richard. Let me have you.”

Dick feels a shiver run through him, a last glimpse of denial, of morality, all fading in the weight of Damian’s need and words. He moves, encouraging Damian to shift off of him, and stands, joints creaking in protest from sitting in one spot for so long. Dick stares down at Damian, and he thinks Damian believes he’s going to reject him a final time; a stubborn pout on his lips but resignation in his eyes. Instead, he reaches his arm down, clasping Damian’s hand in his. It’s smooth on one side with fine hairs that tickle Dick’s fingers, but his fingers are calloused, worn from years of guns and swords and bo staffs. It’s warm and somehow comforting. 

Damian stands and crowds into Dick’s body, lowering his head and claiming Dick’s lips with his own. The kiss is gentle and tastes of his tears – salty, sad – at first. But when Damian uses his tongue to push past Dick’s last defense, he finds himself blossoming under him, letting Damian hold him up now, as he was doing for Damian minutes before. His former Robin’s lips are soft, his tongue sure and surprisingly kind, generous.

In the rare times Dick had indulged himself in fantasy, he’d imagined either him taking control and showing the boy things no one else had, or, alternatively, Damian seizing control, using force and violence to take Dick roughly – as roughly as he’d shown up in their lives, sowing chaos amongst a family that had finally started stitching itself back together and healing, prattling on about ‘blood son’ this and ‘blood son’ that.

Instead, it’s Damian’s force of will that has worn Dick down, like a river undeniably, but so slow no one notices, creating a canyon through ancient rock. Now, Damian is gentle like a small lake, lapping at his shores, pulling him under. He’s drowning in the kiss, lips and tongue and teeth, and fuck but he’s _never_ been kissed like this and the taste of salt fails to detract. He wonders who taught Damian this; all thoughts of showing Damian things he’s never learned flying from his head. For all that the boy might not have experienced an act in bed, Dick cannot delude himself to suppose he is his first.

But the way Damian kisses him, he wonders if he’s the prize the Heir to the Demon has been waiting for.

He pulls away, desperate for breath, and moans when Damian descends on his neck, kissing his way down until he reaches the hollow of his throat and proceeds to suck what will be a vivid bruise there. He can’t bring himself to complain, even as he knows, when he meets with Alfred, with Tim tomorrow, he won’t be able to hide it and they will judge his actions the night Batman died, for how can he explain the seduction of one Richard Grayson by the Batman’s son?

Damian’s face touches his neck and it’s still wet. It sends Dick back into protective mode, and he finds himself cradling Damian’s head, bringing him back up to his lips, keeping this kiss soft. He walks Damian back, gently tugging off his sweatshirt, slowing down his hands when he tries to claw at Dick’s uniform, unable to hook his fingers in the hidden zipper catch because he’s shaking too much.

“Let me, baby bat,” he says, the words tumbling off his tongue effortlessly.

Damian seems to melt into him, for once letting Dick control something.

He steps back and divests himself of the suit and armor quickly. With every inch he peels off, Damian’s hands seem to follow – so maybe Damian isn’t _entirely_ giving Dick control.

Once he’s stripped, Damian’s hands turn from fluttering to purposeful, pushing him back and into Dick’s bedroom, crowding into his body until Dick falls back on the bed. Dick, though, keeps one arm around Damian’s broad shoulders and brings him down on top. He bites off the moan threatening to come out as he’s subsumed by Damian, no longer making himself small in grief, but rather manhandling Dick exactly how he wants him. He pushes himself back up off of Dick enough so that he can spread Dick’s legs with his knee, pull his tee off over his head with two hands, tossing it onto the floor.

Dick’s world shifts and it’s not because Damian crawls onto the bed, using his knees to push Dick’s further apart. Well, not entirely.

It’s mostly because the power dynamic has flipped; Dick is naked but for his tight boxer briefs and jock strap, skin pebbling from cold and anticipation. Damian, though, still wears his jeans and his pecs and abs flex with every move he makes. There’s a tattoo on his shoulder – one Bruce had advised against – that appears to flow like water over his skin as Damian surges against Dick, pressing him into the mattress. His cock is hard, digging into Dick’s thigh as he leans down to take him in a kiss again.

Soon Dick is writhing against Damian’s belly, desperate for relief from the teasing of his lips, the gentle caress of his fingers even as his palms slide over his body possessively. Damian’s gaze doesn’t let up once, seemingly soaking in everything Dick does until he is panting and burning from the fire behind his former Robin’s eyes.

Dick is lost, unmoored, emotions battling with his own body’s traitorous desires, with the way he wants to give into everything Damian is seemingly offering with his touch and hushed Arabic as he kisses his way down Dick’s body. He rests one hand on Dick’s ass while the other pulls down his underwear and jock enough to free him and instantly begins jacking him. Damian licks and kisses and bites at Dick’s hip until he’s coming hard enough from Damian’s hand that his own clutch into the dark hair; the intimation at oral doesn’t pass him by and his cock lets out another spurt under Damian’s heavy gaze.

Damian continues stroking him, not even letting up when Dick writhes with oversensitivity, instead dipping in to kiss and suck, sometimes his cock, sometimes further down, tantalizing hints of what’s to come, between the pulls of his hand until Dick is hard again, like he hadn’t come two minutes before. Dick’s never been this vocal before – and that’s saying something – but when he tries to keep his mouth covered, pressing his fist into it, Damian reaches back up and pulls it away.

“Let me hear you, Richard. I don’t want you hiding or forgetting who is making you feel this.”

The words and implication leave Dick feeling raw, desperate. He’s supposed to be taking care of Damian, but his former mentee is now calm and sure of himself, no longer the boy-like man Dick held an hour ago, but someone sure of themselves, as much a man as circumstance has forced him to be.

Eventually, Damian pulls back, stripping first Dick then himself of all clothing. Dick watches with mouth practically watering as he strides around the bed and makes his way to the nightstand, finding the lube he was looking for in the second drawer down.

Dick considers himself pansexual when he’s stopped to think about it, to _label_ it. But he has a preference for women and his experience with men has mostly been sexual rather than romantic in nature – awkward crush on Bruce aside. He and Roy had fooled around when they were teens, and there’s been one or two casual fucks aside from that in his twenties. That one-time thing with Hank and Dawn; worst decision of his life, even if the sex was great. 

But never has Dick felt like he does now. Yes, he’s consumed by lust at seeing the almost cat-like way Damian moves, hips reminiscent of his mother’s, backed by the power from Bruce’s physicality and all of Damian’s training. But even as Damian scoops him up, tosses him higher on the bed, on the pillows, it’s oddly gentle, intimate, in a way he’s not used to with anyone outside of Babs or Kory. When Damian kisses him again – inserting his tongue the same time he inserts a finger into Dick’s ass, leaving him gasping for air – it’s soft and deep, like a lover’s kiss. Like a ‘from an epic love tale’ kind of kiss.

Then again, Dick’s head always gets away from him, romanticizing things that shouldn’t be and there’s one part of him, the Bruce voice, telling him this is still so wrong and it’s all misplaced affection and Dick doesn’t get to do this or feel this because none of them do…

Damian grunts, breaking him out of his wildly spinning thoughts. One hand is jacking himself off while the other continues to search for Dick’s prostate. He doesn’t even ask, just pushes a second, then third finger into Dick, twisting and scissoring; fast, but not rough.

It’s not easy, but Dick likes the burn. It’s been quite some time since anyone has fucked him, and he finds his brain shutting down, his body taking over and letting Dick exist in a world of only _feeling_ and not emotion. He bucks into Damian, seeking friction on his cock and with that, the other man grins down at him, smile sharp like a predator’s bite.

“No one else, Grayson,” Damian whispers and then begins pushing into Dick’s body. “You are mine, now.”

The moan he draws out would be enough to wake the neighbors if Dick had any left. He keeps thrusting until he’s in all the way, balls to Dick’s ass and Dick feels so goddamned _full_. His body adjusts like it was made for Damian; Damian who makes his own path and burrows his way into everyone around him.

Damian, who is biting his lip and looks to be holding back, shoulders tense, a thin sheen of sweat on his body. “Still hard,” he says, almost in awe, and Dick feels like preening. Instead, he flexes his muscles, moves his body so that he’s grinding back against Damian’s hips. He tightens around his cock and watches Damian’s eyes shutter closed, listens to his deep inhale.

Then Damian shifts, moving one of Dick’s legs over his hip, bending down to kiss Dick again. It’s all a downhill battle of Dick losing himself to Damian’s body from there on. Dick goes loose and lets Damian have control who takes it happily, building a pace that only intensifies – somehow never rough, but still a good fuck that will leave Dick remembering it for days.

When Damian finds his prostate with the new angle, Dick clutches and claws at Damian’s back, whispering filthy things in his ear – all the things Dick has wanted and thought about in the last year, the things he barely let himself know he wanted and Damian just pants in his ear and whispers back in Arabic what Dick thinks is ‘yes’ and ‘everything.’

They fuck for what feels like both eternity and only a minute before Dick’s second orgasm begins sinking its way into his groin, sparks like lightening spreading out from his cock, from where its trapped between their bodies, the unceasing brush against his nerves every time Damian pushes his cock back into Dick.

Eventually, Dick turns his head, unable to take the unerring stare Damian gives him, soaking in every bodily reaction, every noise that slips from his lips, unsure if he wants Damian to look him right through his orgasm.

“’m so close,” he whines. It’s right there and he’s chasing after it like he’ll die without it. His other leg creeps up, wraps around Damian’s trim waist, causes his next thrust to bottom out hot and hard.

“Richard,” Damian says, voice rough. 

“Yeah, yeah, Damian,” he replies, all coherence gone as Damian presses him down harder, presses kisses and bruises into his skin as he rides out his orgasm, filling Dick up in a way he’s never let anyone else and yeah, he thought about condoms for three parts of a millisecond, but there’s something about the end of the world, and the dissent into chaos by even giving into Damian in the first place that made him not care and now, god, he knows he’s going to be messy, but the rush of warmth, the sense of ownership he gets from Damian’s tightening arms and heavy breathing set him off. He clenches down on Damian as his cock comes with nothing more than the friction caused by rubbing off on their abs.

Damian bites his lips and keeps thrusting into Dick, letting him ride out his orgasm, whimpering “Tight, so tight,” at him and boosting Dick’s ego in the strangest way.

Before even coming down, orgasm still leaving him trembling, Dick pulls Damian into his body, practically crushing his head into his sternum, resting his own on top. The fingers of one hand stroke through black hair while the other rests against Damian’s back, tracing lines of muscles and scars.

He falls asleep to whatever prayer Damian mutters against his skin.

~~~

In the light of day, the reality of the night before sinks in. Bruce is dead. His mentor, his partner, his occasional father figure. And lying next to him is essentially his brother, and a minor. Bruce would be appalled. Alfred would reject him if he knew. Babs would look at him with that ever-present sorrow and disappointment in her eyes he’s seen since they entered their mid-twenties. And Jason, well, Jason will either laugh or shoot him. Jason’s teased him about the crush Damian seemed to have on him, how Dick was the sole person Damian responded to, more so than Bruce, even. But Jason has a code and men in their thirties having sex with under-eighteen-year-olds is a hard line for him.

God, he feels sick. He clutches his head in his hands, tries to keep his stomach from roiling too much. From the fear, the grief, the disgust with himself.

Beside him, Damian shifts, and his eyes are inevitably drawn to him. He’s turned towards Dick. His face is still free of anything more than peach fuzz, and he looks even younger in the soft light from the windows. His one arm is stretched out, like he’s searching for a body next to him. The usual frown lines that ring his mouth are gone, as is the furrow that usually decorates his brow. His short dark hair is tousled, missing the gel that normally keeps his soft waves at bay. Waves and color, he inherited from his father, as he did his jaw, his size. His eyes – still closed – and his mouth, his shape, though, are all Talia’s. He is the best of two devastatingly attractive people and Dick allows himself one moment of joy knowing he was allowed that, that such a beautiful and deadly creature wanted him.

Then his world shifts and he feels dizzy because it’s wrong, _so wrong_ ; Damian was his to protect, to watch over and care for like a _brother_ , and instead he went and fucked him – semantics of who actually penetrated who aside. 

He stumbles to the bathroom and empties his stomach. It’s mostly bile. He hadn’t eaten before patrol, no more than a protein bar anyway, not wanting to weigh himself down, and Damian’s presence and revelation had kept him from his usual after-patrol dinner.

The noise of it, and of Dick cleaning himself up, aren’t enough to wake Damian. It seems his exertion from last night, mental and physical, have worn him out more than fighting an army of Colony soldiers has ever done.

Good. 

Dick quickly packs his Nightwing case: suit, weapons, passports and cash. His comm. He throws in a few mementos because he won’t be coming back, including a picture of him and Damian when Damian was fourteen and Dick had been returned from the “dead” and rediscovered who he was and his place with the Batfamily after a year of knowing himself only as Ric. He doesn’t look at the picture now, feels too dirty to sully it with his gaze, but he keeps it.

When he pauses once more at the bedroom door, Damian sleeps on. Dick is overwhelmed by the desire to stay, to wake him up with soft kisses, to treat him like the precious thing he is, to show him Dick has wanted him, too, has loved him since he was ten and how what was once familial love has evolved into something more over the last year as Damian grew into a man.

He resists, though. Maybe if he’d waited. Waited until he was eighteen, or better yet, twenty, _twenty-six_ , if he had still wanted Dick, then, as a middle-aged man. Maybe, then, he’d be worthy of showing his affection. Of receiving Damian’s in return.

But he spoiled it, sullied it in a night of weakness.

He rubs a hand across his face, feeling truly old for once. Then, he leaves.

~~~

It’s not that he doesn’t see Damian again. No, there’s two days later when he’s going through Bruce’s files on the case he was working, the one still left unsolved in the chaos that ensued with Lex’s “debate,” when Damian comes down to get his Robin suit. They look at each other and then Dick nods and turns away; Damian says nothing.

Then, there’s the funeral. All five Bat boys lined up on one side, all five Bat women lined up on the other, Alfred standing in place of a pastor. The only other visitor is Damian’s mother, standing at her son’s shoulder. Wonder Woman and what remains of the Justice League are too consumed by trying to save the planet from itself to stop in Gotham, though the Bats know they mourn Bruce, too. 

It’s amazing that all of them, _any_ of them, have this moment to lay Bruce into the ground, given the chaos that surrounds them now every day. Superman’s death has called all the Earth’s space allies to the planet, but their ships are still days away. It’s called his enemies, too, sensing the Earth is weak and this will probably be the last time the Batfamily can be called that again, unless they decide to shut out the world in favor of Gotham. That’s Jason and Kate’s argument, but Dick, in donning the cape once more, even as he knew Damian itched for it, has become the de facto leader and he knows they can’t hide. Lex Luthor – and the world – killed the planet’s greatest defender and best person – and those same people out there who thought _doom_ killed its best man and detective. For all that the world as a whole turned against them, there are those who thought _justice_ and must be saved.

After, in the Cave, he hands out assignments. Kate and Stephanie, along with Supergirl, will go to Waller’s A.R.G.U.S. compound, and see if they can entice her to fight against the side that killed Superman. They know, with her rise in what’s left of the media post Superman’s death, that, for all her warped sense of morality, she thought _justice_.

Duke, Harper, and the remaining Titans will defend the West Coast and meet with the Lanterns in Coast City where they are battling Mogo. Tim and Jason will be meeting with Roy and Emiko – the only surviving Arrows – and Superboy to try to take down Brainiac upon arrival.

Babs is going with Kory to meet the Tamaraneans and Thanagarians in Virginia.

Finally, it is him left with Damian, Talia, and Alfred. He knows who is staying. He is Batman; Dick must stay and protect Gotham. Alfred will continue to be his guide, his eyes and ears around the town. Lately, though, he has been spending more time deeper in the Cave, tinkering with something he won’t even let Dick in on.

He thinks Bruce’s death has truly broken the man, this time. Alfred moves slower, stiffer, now. One too many times, he’s seen the man he thought of as his son die. Dick’s always heard a parent shouldn’t outlive their child.

Alfred wanders down into the abyss of the Cave, as he does so often now, and leaves Dick with Damian and Talia. He and Talia wage a battle of words and will for Damian. His mother wants him with her, where she thinks she can protect him, like she could not his father. The al Ghul’s hold remains strong in their land, as it always has. _Doom_ has not overrun them, the way it has in the Arabian Peninsula, in America, in Europe.

Dick, though, he wants Damian by his side. His partner, his Robin. He even accedes to allowing Damian to pick a new name for himself; Dick may be Batman, but Damian could be Nightwing or the Demon, or anything else. He wonders, though, if the hold the title of Batman has always had on him, will force him away.

In the end, neither Dick nor Talia win, and it’s not the cowl that forces Damian away. It’s Dick.

Even with his mother looking on, murmuring something that sounds like “strange taste” in Arabic, Damian moves to Dick and towers over him. From this angle, he looks noble, commanding. Dick sees hints of both Bruce and Ra’s in him.

“You have pushed me away, Richard. Are you willing to welcome me to you as you are willing to welcome Gotham to me?”

“Gotham is your home, Damian,” he says, confused.

“Gotham is destined to be my city. Father was my home. You could be.”

Dick looks away from Damian’s green eyes burning into his soul. His mouth is dry. He fiddles with the cowl sitting on the metal conference table.

“Damian, I can’t—”

“Can’t or won’t, Grayson?” Damian hisses, moving into his space, placing his hands alongside the chair at shoulder-level, caging him in. “The world is falling apart, and you care for one law that operates in only some countries and not even mine? I am not a child too young to know their mind or judgement. I killed at seven; I think I can love at seventeen.”

 _Love_.

“You’re my brother, Damian, I—”

“You are my brother, but I am not your _brother_. I am the blood son and heir. You were his partner, his friend. Do not belittle me. I know you want me. I would have you. Why do you deny yourself?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Dick says, exasperation filling his voice. He’s desperate. Damian smells so good, like he’s found time to bathe in cinnamon and cloves after the last attack on the city. His skin looks soft and glows in the light of the Cave. His voice and words wrap around the desire in Dick’s heart.

He is everything Dick has left of Bruce that is human. He can’t ruin that now. Not even for the sense of wholeness, contentedness, that Damian has always brought to him.

Damian continues to stare at him, and he reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, coming away with one silver strand. He looks at it, face stoic for a moment.

“Is this what you truly fear? Or perhaps you think you’ll protect me from it. Either way, Grayson, you are hardly old, and I am more than your equal, knowledge of 1980’s American rock bands withstanding.”

Dick feels the corner of his mouth turn up. It’s a long running joke with them. Out of the corner of his eyes, he sees Talia’s eyes roll, like she’s annoyed only with their frustrated flirting, rather than the implication of her seventeen-year-old son being in a relationship with a thirty-year-old man.

“There you are, Richard.”

The smooth honeyed tone of his voice, the way his tongue curls around Dick’s full name, has Dick falling into the kiss Damian gives him. It’s possessive and deep, but not aggressive somehow. Dick loses himself in it, in the feel of Damian’s calluses against his cheek, the soft sensation of his thumb caressing his jaw, the way his other hand tightens in his hair, pulling his head back and forcing Dick to give him greater access.

He feels helpless. He feels like caving in the force of Damian’s will.

But Dick Grayson would never have made it as Robin, as Nightwing, as partner to the Batman, if he didn’t have his own iron sense of will. He pulls back from the kiss, wistful and aching, even as he pushes Damian away from his body.

“I won’t,” he says.

Damian stares down at him, mouth red and wet from where Dick licked into it, bruised it with his teeth. His eyes are at first hooded and dark, then they grow wider and calm, accepting.

“Then I cannot stay,” Damian says, voice flat, “for I have no place here.”

With that, he vanishes with a flash of his dark cape, without even a glance back at his mother.

Talia, who moves to fill the space, lounging her body in front of Dick, stretching out on the table. Dick has always known what Bruce saw in her, even if he never understood the compulsion to have sex with someone so twisted. Now, though, he understands Bruce in that, even as he knows Talia is not so black and white and never has been. Her only constant is her strange sense of loyalty to Bruce and the love for her son.

Her voice is filled with amusement. “You and your father; such complicated men.”

He grimaces. “Please, don’t call him that. Not after…”

Talia shrugs, one sinuous move from her shoulders down the length of her body, warm brown skin and breasts showing as she leans forward.

“My beloved could not resist me – he came back time and again, more than he did to the Catwoman or to the Superman. If there is one thing I know about Bats and al Ghul’s, it is that we are meant to be matched. Our union is unparalleled and through it, we can conquer this world. If my son has given himself to you, you won’t resist for long.”

She shifts, her long and deep brown hair swirling around them. She smells similar to Damian, though more of anise than cinnamon; light, compared to Damian’s heavy scent.

“You have been claimed by my son and you will go back to him. In the meantime,” she sighs, “I suppose I will have to mend his heart as I have mended mine over and over from my beloved’s rejections.”

Talia stands. “Protect yourself, Richard Grayson: Batman. Do not cause my son the pain my beloved has caused me with his final passing. I will see you again.”

With that, she vanishes as silently as Damian had and for the first time, Dick wonders if maybe Bruce wouldn’t have found a little amusement in his predicament, rather than a sense of horror at two of his sons – one adopted and one birth – desiring each other.

He leans his head on his gloved hands for a few minutes. Then he stands and gets to work.

He doesn’t see Damian again for years.


	2. Book Two

Damian’s first battle is to return to Nanda Parbat. When she exits the Cave only a few minutes behind him, his mother finds him staring at the dark manor – for once not dark because his father liked to maintain a certain façade, but because the city of Gotham itself has gone dark. They’re only a week out from the attack on the Hall of Justice, but already there are rumors of threat rising in Gotham. The Commissioner no longer controls the police force and Batgirl will be leaving, too; the streets are chaotic and only one vigilante remains. 

He aches to stay, but the time is not right. All he can hope – he never uttered that word until he moved to this city, to the place where Batman was born, something at odds with how his father conceived of himself and his mission – is that Grayson is ready to take on Batman again. That he can survive this threat in a way his own father could not.

“Son,” his mother prompts, as she comes to stand behind him. They have a long and varied history, yet her presence is a comfort now.

“Leave behind the unit my grandfather considered most trustworthy, the most loyal. Those he would have trusted with his life. I will have their lives before anyone takes his.”

He can feel her nod, to him, then to someone else behind him. Several dark shapes detach themselves from the manor. They will go into the city proper and guard Batman’s life as if it were their own master’s.

Grayson is his life. A revelation he is sure of, even as he remains unsure of what it means.

He places his hands in his jeans’ pockets, fists clenched. “I am sorry, Mother,” he says, still looking at the Manor, foolishly waiting for blue eyes to meet his from a window.“I was not there, nor did I save him. _'ana 'uhzun maeak_.”

Talia reaches out and pulls him into her body as she did when he was a small boy and had a rough day of training. Only now her head rests on his chest instead of the other way around. He clings to her all the same.

“I do not blame you, my son,” she tells him in their native language. “Nor do I believe he is gone. Not entirely. Not only does my beloved live on in you, but his legacy lives on in this place—” she gestures to the Manor, to Gotham, “—and Bruce always had a contingency plan. I only wish I had been there to bring him our last pit.”

“You still can,” he responds. Batman is buried only six feet deep and Damian knows what his mother did for one of Bruce’s sons before. Why not the man himself?

She shakes her head. “The pit is yours, Damian. You know that bringing someone back destroys the pool, unlike healing. I am grown; you are young still, and I suspect the world will do its best to send you to hell.” She pauses. “My love was never returned as whole-heartedly. I will not take that possibility away from you.”

He turns his back to the Manor, moving toward the vehicles his mother arrived in. “He does not want me, either, Mother.”

She arches one of her beautifully manicured eyebrows at him. “Speak proper, son. Richard Grayson does desire you. Physically, romantically.” She smiles, a small quirk of her lips. “You did push him. You knew he was not ready.”

Damian purses his lips. They are halfway out of Gotham before he speaks again. “I do not understand. At home, I could consent two years ago.”

Talia sighs. “Your father and I would always disagree on many things. Some would simply never change; not for either of us. Richard has all the love your father could not openly express. But it means his sense of duty and justice is as…rigid, as the man who taught him. Had he grown up with his parents, who is to say what his ethical system might have been. But if your father had not taken him in, he would not be the man you love.” 

“It does not bother you, that I desire a man over ten years my senior?”

His mother shifts and gives directions to the driver. Damian knows they will soon come across a helicopter in the open fields outside Gotham. When she leans back, it is her turn to consider.

“In our country, women have been given to men such as your grandfather to be their brides from as young as the age you were when I sent you to your father. That history and hatred of the things men did to my sisters remains in me, even as I created myself to be worth more to my father so that I did not suffer the same fate.”

She looks at him, eyes somehow kind and fierce. “You, however, have _chosen_. And I admire your chosen for being so adamant to his own laws and sense of justice. His is still a man, and thus, when you tempted him, he failed. But I know he is good, and I know he never had the lecherous thoughts my sisters suffered when you were young. Like my beloved, he is worthy of an al Ghul’s affection.”

Damian nods, eventually, mind finally settled. Some fifteen hours later, when they land in the place he once called home, greeted by heat and wind and sand, the first thing he says to his mother is: “I hope you have a change of clothes for me.”

She gazes at him, face serious.

“Robin is no more,” he states.

“Ibn al Xu'ffasch, then,” she responds.

“Ibn al Xu'ffasch.”

~~~

Ibn al Xu'ffasch’s first mission involves the mutated crocodiles of Fawcett City. It seems Killer Croc ran at the first hint of organization coming back to Gotham after the fall of the Hall, and when the nuclear bombs went off, there were suddenly actual crocodiles who mutated in a similar enough manner. The only joy Damian receives from the mission – which ultimately fails, losing the city to the mutants – is watching Croc be eaten by the reptiles. For a man who once took a chunk out of his father, it seemed a fitting end.

Ibn al Xu'ffasch meets with Donna and Cassie, transferring the citizens of Fawcett who had thought _justice_ over to the Amazons for better protection. He does not know if they take all refugees back to Themyscira or not, though he knows the island still stands. Not one Amazon had wished for doom and he understands now why his father admired Wonder Woman so much. Though, she too has been lost to the conflict.

He stays away from Waller’s compound, where Captain Atom exploded and bodies turned into earthen zombies with less mind than Bizzaro, craving bones for their radiation-wracked bodies. That area of the country was officially quarantined by the remaining shred of the U.S. government. The Demon did not consort with foreign governments, nor heed them.

The Demon did, however, consort with magic kind, and one year after the fall of the aliens on the expanse of what once had been Virginia, Ibn al Xu'ffasch and John Constantine made a pact: a spell in exchange for some of the remaining Lazarus Pit. The amount the Brit wanted was not enough to take away from its healing powers and so in the end, the trade was positive for Damian.

Now, he knew where and in what state the remaining hero of Gotham was in, their souls tied in a way that would mean death for The Demon if death for Batman. He paid in blood, quite literally, to make it one-sided.

It is because of this that Damian learns of the yearly pilgrimages to the Plains of Solitude that Batman embarks on. Ibn al Xu'ffasch knows what goes on there, the way Lex has driven himself insane now that his mooring and rival is unexpectedly gone at his own hand. He keeps an eye on the experiments and Luthor, both too unstable to be left entirely alone, but he also keeps Grayson clear and unknowing of the Superman clones. He cannot be given false hope.

Of course, the most dangerous aspect of this new world order is the Speed Force storms. Bart sometimes recognizes him and Damian can barely make him out in the mass of swirling red that is now the Flash, drying land and mammal up with age. Bart will cry “Dami…help…me…” but Damian cannot. No one has figured out how to stop the storms, how to rescue The Flash. Perhaps Bruce or Clark could have if they were still around. But Damian does not have his father’s penchant for figuring out mysteries and despite the Pit, he cannot survive the storm like Superman might have.

The one place the storms avoid is Gotham; even Nanda Parbat was taken down, half of the stone crumbled to dust in an instant. It is still Ibn al Xu'ffasch’s base, but Damian prefers to move.

Move he does, mostly by air, the seas still a boiling hundred degrees. Global warming executed with efficiency; almost all sea life – including the Atlanteans – gone in a blink of the eye. He is grateful the last Pit is deep underground and sheltered from the rays that burned the seas. Only lakes now exist for humans to find water from; that and the deep wells of Gemworld.

More refugees, the ones who haven’t gone mad or have not torn themselves to pieces over doom, make it to Gemworld, now. It is the last sanctuary on Earth and the last for Heaven and Hell, too. Year Five saw them extinguish themselves in battle, leaving only the worlds from mythology left: Hades, Limbo, Fate’s Tower – though Doctor Fate himself was no more. Worlds covered in darkness. Humanity might have sought out the stars once more, but those who could make the tech had fallen or did not care, and all the good aliens had been extinguished from this sector in the final fight with Brainiac and Mogo.

Damian occasionally wondered if the New Gods sat out there and laughed at them. If perhaps Darkseid would one day return to strike the final blow. But, perhaps, he was as lost without Superman too, and with it, lost interest in Earth, now known as the final resting place of the last son of Krypton.

As time goes by, Damian’s mission narrows down. Where once he sought out refugees, the Speed Force storms have grown worse and the Amazons now run Gemworld. Supergirl and even Poison Ivy fight the ravages of the planet to protect them, picking up a few strays here or there. Most of the topside though are not worth saving; they’ve become beings of their own making. While Batman might once have sought to save every last one, Ibn al Xu'ffasch maintains his own land – Nanda Parbat has simply expanded underground, brushing up to the border of Gemworld but not invading. He also keeps his eye on Gotham. The threat he once felt leaving the city so many years ago has risen; Omega.

Someone with the strategic mind of Batman and some of his tricks, even, holds the anti-life equation.

When Batman goes dark, Damian knows it is time to return and claim Gotham as his.


	3. Book Three

Dick has been captured for exactly five days, sixteen hours, and eleven minutes when the cavalry bursts in. He’s developed a very good sense of time since he took over Gotham. Since the first Speed Force storm.

What greets him, though, when his blindfold is removed, is not Signal or Black Bat, or even the new kid, Terry. Instead, it’s a bunch of people dressed like the League of Assassins – ninjas with swords instead of shuriken. Except the League hasn’t been around since the Hall fell. 

Once he’s unbound, he nearly slides to the floor, only to be held up by a strong arm of one of the people who have apparently rescued him. Or so he hopes. Hopes this isn’t another of Omega’s mind games. It feels real, but so did the time when he swore he was talking to Bruce. Or the dream where instead of rejecting Damian, he had—

He cuts those thoughts off as he’s placed back in the chair.

The crowd of ninjas separate and a tall form cuts through them to stop in front of him. The man is big and broad, his skin dark in the few spaces revealed by his clothes. He wears all black; leather pants, a tunic that features a collar more eastern than any of the rest of the assassins have, a robe over that with no sleeves that flows almost cape-like. A sword gleams in his hands. His head is covered with what appears to be something traditional, black cord keeping it on his head, with an added black veil or scarf that covers most of his face.

His eyes, though; those are what catches Dick’s attention the most. They are the color of aged jade and their shape…

The man slowly sheathes his sword on his back and begins to remove his headwear. When it finally pools into his hands like black oil, Damian smiles down at him.

“Hello, beloved.”

Dick faints.

~~~

When he awakes, Dick is in a cave. Not _the_ Cave, that having been discovered by Omega some years past. But apparently one of Gotham’s other caves. Three faces greet him: Duke, Cass, and Terry, his gold eyes shining in whatever light source is illuminating the cave.

Cass smiles and signs, _You are well. Safe_.

He nods, then stops, discovering the movement causes his brain to feel like it’s on fire.

“Careful, Bats,” Duke says, a name Dick has been unable to get him to stop saying, even a year after giving up the mantle of Batman for one better suited to this new Gotham. “Omega did quite the mindfuck on you. We had to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind.”

Terry grins at Dick, his yellow eyes contrasting with his child-like smile. “I checked. You don’t smell brainwashed.”

“We did some other tests, too,” Duke says, rolling his eyes affectionately. “The League…well, they were able to rescue some old things. Things from you-know-who’s days.”

Dick reaches up, thrilled to discover he’s not tied down. He scrubs at his face. “It really was the League? I thought I was dreaming. Didn’t they disband years ago?”

Cass’ head is tilted toward the cave entrance. Dick’s eyes follow hers.

_Damian_.

Dick suddenly feels his thirty-seven years as he stares at a mid-twenties Damian Wayne. As if Damian had ever _really_ had baby fat past thirteen, any child-like softness he still maintained at seventeen had now vanished. His jaw could cut steel, his shoulders have gotten even bigger, and his skin is darker – probably from living life in the desert instead of an eternally gloomy city like Gotham. His hair has grown out enough to just wave over his collar; still short, but now it looks soft, more entrancing. The permanent furrow remained on his brow, but now there were the beginnings of a few lines around his eyes, and he boasted a new scar drawing a line from his chin down his throat and vanishing into the collar of his robe.

He was the most beautiful man Dick has ever set eyes on. And yes, Damian is now nothing but _man_ ; Dick would never again be able to call him a boy again.

He turns his gaze back over to the ragtag Bats that still survive. “Are you sure I’m not still dreaming? Terry, sure you’re not secretly Omega?”

Terry laughs, something that sounds younger than his fourteen years. He wonders if he ever sounded so young, even as he knows it’s partly because of what the Court did to Terry; he has the skills of a thirty-year trained assassin but the mind and social adjustment of a child about ten.

Cass simply smiles though and shakes her head. She opens her mouth to say, “Ibn al Xu'ffasch,” and then goes back to smirking, eyes flitting between Dick and Damian like she’s watching an amusing comedy show.

“Ibn al Xu'ffasch?” Dick asks, blinking, sitting up slowly. “A bit on the nose.”

“I could not be your Robin, anymore,” Damian says, in way of explanation.

“Did you know?” Dick asks Cass, suspicious.

She looks at him, then nods, not seeming at all contrite. 

“Cass will always be a valuable member of the League,” Damian adds.

“Traitor,” he murmurs at her. Then he looks back at Damian. “I thought you died, you asshole. You dropped off the face of the earth and I haven’t heard from you in seven years and you think you have the right to rescue me and call me…to call me _beloved_?”

By the end he’s yelling, heedless of the headache its causing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Duke and Cass standing and trying to shuffle Terry out of the cave. “Okay, time to leave mom and dad to fight,” he hears Duke say to Terry. The cave must be bigger than Dick thought if there’s somewhere else to go.

He and Damian stare at each other until the space is empty. Dick balls his hands into fists, in part out of anger, in part because it’s keeping the pain at bay.

“Here,” Damian offers him a cup of water and two pain pills of some kind. “Do not be stubborn.”

“Don’t be stubborn,” Dick mocks. He swallows the pills and all the water down, anyway. “Who are you and what have you done with my brat of a brother?”

Damian gives him a glare that could level a city of brave men. Fortunately, Dick became immune to that look some fifteen-odd years ago.

He sighs. “It’s probably a sign of some serious issues, but I can’t stop thinking of you like that, sometimes. Even if my feelings weren’t so brotherly for a long time.”

“Weren’t?” Damian asks, busying himself with something on a digipad. He links it up to a port Dick only now notices.

“Again. Dead. Or so I thought.” He places his head in his hands.

“Did you mourn me?” Damian says, and Dick starts because his voice is _right there_ , sad and yet coy in his ear.

“Did I—?” Dick spits, stuttering with frustration. “What, you want to hear the words I would have read for your eulogy, if I hadn’t been trying to reach Babs and Kory in Virginia, mourning their deaths? If Gotham hadn’t been overrun by Omega’s men only days later?”

“No,” Damian responds, quiet. He seems almost remorseful, an emotion Dick never thought he’d see on the youngest Bat.

They’re both quiet for a few minutes, Damian clicking away at his pad, until a mainframe computer, hidden from Dick’s eyes until then, flickers on and starts showing code. Dick watches it, almost hypnotized, until he shakes himself out of it.

“I don’t mean—” he starts, but Damian beats him to it.

“You have every right to be upset with me. I have known where you were for every moment of the last six years. You have held this city the best you could under the anti-life signal. Yet, I never once came back until I no longer knew where Batman was. I knew something had happened, then, and it was time to return.“

“I don’t understand.”

Damian steeples his hands over the pad, fingers still graceful, slim; like a man meant for the piano instead of this hellscape they live in. “Six years ago, the Demon made a deal with a devil. Before Constantine was lost to the wars of Heaven and Hell, I had him cast a spell. It bound my soul to yours. I’ve known every time you moved an inch in this city. Every time you got injured. Every time you sought out hope on the Plains of Solitude.”

Dick’s mouth drops open before he can control it. He ends up closing it and rubbing at his temples.

His hands, though, are pushed away, in favor of those hands that haven’t touched him in seven years. Damian presses and kneads just right, enough that in five minutes, Dick hasn’t muttered a word, but his headache is gone. When Damian’s hands move from his temples to his hair, Dick allows himself to lean back, to feel sheltered by the broad chest of a man he hasn’t seen in so long. It’s only fair Damian should play with his hair, for once.

“You know that’s a violation of my privacy, right?” he eventually mumbles, but there’s no heat behind it.

Damian sniffs. “I was trained by the Demon and by the Bats; I believe Jason once said: ‘lack of privacy is the Bat way of showing love’.”

Oh, Jason. Dick’s heart hurts. He lets out a choked sigh. Damian continues stroking his hair and for a moment, they grieve together.

Eventually, Damian pulls back and moves so Dick can look at him. “Beloved. You would not have accepted me sooner. You may still not accept me, but I had to take that chance; your life is worth more than mine and even if you do not want me anymore, I could not let you die at the hands of Omega.”

“Do you know who he is?” Dick asks.

Damian tersely shakes his head. “Even Ibn al Xu'ffasch has not discovered his identity yet. He knows _you_. That narrows the suspects. Perhaps, if you allow me my place in this city, Damian Wayne can uncover it.”

“Damian, this city was always yours. I was only keeping it company for a while.” He pauses. “I’m not the Batman, anymore.”

“No,” Damian says, one hand reaching out to grip Dick’s jaw. “You are not. You have become what this city needs; what you need to be to take down Omega. Batman can’t do that. But with your Talon…”

His eyes drift the way of Duke, Cass, and Terry.

“I found him,” Dick says. “But Terry’s mine. _Ours_. Not theirs. I took down the Court and now I am the Court. I once told Bruce the city might have belonged to someone else, before. Now _I_ am that darkness.”

He chokes on a laugh. “It’s like they fucking knew. After everything Bruce did to snuff out the Parliament. And here I am, The Gray Son after all. God, if he could see me now.”

“You have adopted a name for effect. Do you think I am the demon my grandfather was?” Damian asks.

Dick looks at him, takes in his former Robin. There is a strange lightness to him now; like he’s shed his skin. “How many have you killed, Damian?”

“Only those I had to, for my life or the life of my League.” He blinks and then smiles at Dick. “And a few mutated crocodiles.”

He doesn’t know why, but that sets him off and soon he is giggling like Terry might, all to the curious raise of Damian’s eyebrow.

When he comes down, holding both his side and his head, Damian provides an indulgent smile. “You need rest, Grayson. I do not wish to upset your Talon. I need to work on starting up Father’s backups, so you can sleep. I’ll still be here when you wake.”

Dick lets himself be led back down onto the cot he’s been sitting on the whole time. “You could take him,” he mumbles, thinking of Terry. He’s strong and smart, a trained killer, but so is Damian. And Damian, well, he’s big now. 

“Rest, beloved,” comes Damian’s voice, as if from faraway. Dick swears he feels a kiss pressed to his forehead before he completely passes out.

~~~

This time when he wakes, he’s in a bed. It’s the most luxurious thing he’s felt in seven years. It’s partly made so by the feeling of a warm body wrapped around his, a nose buried in between his shoulder and neck.

Dick’s no saint; he’s had sex since Damian. But nothing ever felt like that time and even though Dick knew nostalgia made things brighter, he hadn’t wanted to erase the good of Damian, even as he still hated himself for breaking too soon. So there had been no one else long term, no one for the night, no one who touched him this way.

He shifts and is met with two distinct issues: one, the cock poking him in the ass, and two, the pair of yellow eyes trained on him.

“Call off your Talon, beloved,” Damian mumbles behind him.

Dick hasn’t woken up with Terry staring at him like this since the first morning after they rescued the boy. Twice in the span of a day or so, is unnerving. Especially given his strange resemblance to Bruce. Dick knows if Bruce had ever seen them like this, Dick would have died of sheer mortification.

“Terry, what’s up?” he asks, reaching out a hand.

Terry takes advantage and crawls into bed with Dick and Damian, like a child might with his parents, for all that he doesn’t remember his parents and for all that Terry is fourteen, not five.

“Are you two done fighting?” he asks.

“We weren’t…” Dick trails off, pushing a lock of hair behind his ear. “We weren’t fighting. I just haven’t seen him in a long time. We had things to discuss.” He sighs. “Still do.”

Damian’s response is a somehow smug way of pushing up against Dick’s ass.

Dick moves one hand back, the one Terry isn’t still holding, and grips Damian’s thigh tight. Tight enough that he knows from Damian’s hiss he bruised flesh. Good.

“Things are changing,” Terry says, in that strange way he has, where he channels something more mature, more powerful than his teenage body. Still, his hand clings and Dick smiles in a way he hopes is comforting.

Terry reminds Dick of Raven, sometimes. He hopes she made it, that she’s still out there somewhere, fighting the good fight.

“That’s why Damian is here. Did Duke tell you he is the son of Batman?”

Terry nods. “Ibn al Xu'ffasch. He found this place. Where the Bat was.”

Dick looks back over his shoulder, sees Damian shrug. “Father never told anyone. But I was a brat when I was twelve, and I followed him one day. We’re actually under the Gotham hospital.”

“You’re still a brat,” Dick mutters. 

Terry laughs. He hugs Dick and then – surprisingly – reaches over and hugs Damian where he can reach. Damian’s stunned expression is worth more than the queen mattress they’re lying on, but Dick smothers his grin.

“Duke says to tell you ‘when mom and dad are awake and ready, there’s pancakes.’” Terry blinks at Dick. “What are pancakes?”

Dick practically moans at the thought of pancakes. He can’t recall the last time he had a hot breakfast.

“You’re gonna love them,” he says. “Tell Duke we’ll be down as soon as I scold our guest about not telling us about this place for years.”

Terry’s face scrunches up looking like he’s about to repeat what Dick said verbatim for posterity, and Dick waves him off. “Never mind. Tell him we’ll be down later. Go enjoy breakfast. There’s still training to do today. A sweep of the city.”

The boy bounces out of the room – a room that must have been intended for Bruce given its size and spartan aesthetics – and Dick can hear dishes clattering and smell oil heating up in preparation for doughy goodness. His yellow eyes flash over his shoulder at them before he’s gone, closing the door behind him.

He keeps his back to Damian for a minute. The other man’s morning wood has gone down, at least.

“You wonder which one of us they’re considering 'mom' in this scenario?” he asks, not expecting, and not receiving an answer.

“I apologize for not sharing the coordinates to this cave.”

“It’s fine,” Dick says, shrugging. “Seven years sleeping in abandoned buildings and on rooftops will prematurely age a person, but it’s fine.”

Damian snorts.

He turns over and stares at Damian’s face, taking in every new line, every scar and freckle, every way he has grown and matured. Damian seems to take the opportunity to do the same and Dick flushes, running his hand over the short beard on his face.

“Look at you. Still interested in sleeping in an old man’s bed, baby bat.”

Instantly, Damian is on him, revealing that he was wearing nothing but the sheet as he swings a leg over Dick’s hips. Dick can’t stop himself from licking his lips as Damian begins to grow right in front of him, hardening as he pins Dick down with his hands.

“Before I was too young. Now you suggest you are too old. Do not deny me again, Richard.”

“No,” Dick whispers. “I can’t. Jesus Christ but I can’t.”

Damian looks satisfied, a twist to his lips as he stretches out across Dick’s body, covering it with his bulk. Dick has lost a bit of his youthful litheness in favor of bulkier shoulders. His abs aren’t as defined, either, but he’s put on an inch or two in muscle mass. He’s still more nimble than either Bruce or Damian could ever be with their size, but he’s afraid Damian will discover it and find his body wanting.

He pulls Damian down to him, kissing his full lips before the other man can stare long enough to notice. He’s got morning breath, made worse by the pain pills, but Damian is minty fresh and apparently doesn’t care. He kisses back as good, better, then Dick gives, wiggling one hand underneath his shoulder for support before pulling Dick’s legs up and around his waist with the other.

“Grayson,” he moans, and Dick can’t deny the shudder his voice, deeper now, causes, the breathy way it catches on his name.

They come like that, naked bodies rubbing together, hands relearning spots, though it seems Damian did not forget a single one of his. His orgasm quakes through him, and he bites back a loud moan, careful of the quiet voices murmuring not too far away, even as Damian bites him on the neck. It’s a claim as much as the hot come spilling from his cock is, as much as the way Damian looks at him as he rubs it into Dick’s skin, calling him _beloved_ in English and Arabic, dragging his fingers across his cock in a way that has Dick whimpering and remembering Damian’s tendency to keep jacking him until he’s hard again.

He doesn’t this time, falling off to the side instead, limbs tangled with Dick’s; tan and amber skin standing out against white sheets. His hair brushes Dick’s nose.

“We do need to talk,” Dick says. 

“There’s too much talking with you,” Damian grumbles. “Perhaps we should talk about you picking up my father’s tendency to adopt children. Particularly young ones trained to kill.”

Dick laughs. “Feeling jealous?” he teases.

Damian is once more in his face. “I have nothing to be jealous _of_ , Richard. I saw the picture in your owl uniform, the one of me and you; dangerous, revealing of you to carry. From the day we met, you were mine and I was yours. Have your Talon; he is no threat. But I am your only robin, love.”

Dick looks at Damian, at the man he has become, and knows nothing is settled. There’s still a simmer of anger that he didn’t tell Dick he was alive, that he wasn’t here, helping Gotham when Dick could have used his assistance. But, as he reaches both his hands up to pull Damian back down to him, to envelope him in the kiss he thinks he should have given that day in the Cave, when maybe he should have told Damian his place was beside Dick because _it was_ , he knows it won’t matter. He’s got questions, sure, but Damian’s here now; there’s time.

Dick feels lighter than he has in years, more confident and more at peace than he’s hoped he ever would after Bruce died.

“Together, then,” he says, running his hands over Damian’s naked back. “Batman and Robin.”

“Ibn al Xu'ffasch and The Gray Son.” Damian leans in closer, murmuring the words against Dick’s lips.

“Dick and Damian,” he sighs into the kiss.

They make it to the kitchen long after Duke has given up and put their pancakes in the fridge. Then there’s a tour of the new cave, of the way Bruce kept it almost as well-stocked as the main Cave: a gym, the technology, the shielded entrances and exits that kept it hidden from everyone, even Dick and the rest of the Bats.

Earth remains a shattered place, with monsters and criminals and dangerous remnants of wars, and Omega breathing down their necks, but there’s something about watching Cass and Terry train, both eerily silent, while Duke works on his suit of armor for the first time in months, making small noises of excitement, and Damian sharpens his sword, that leaves Dick feeling hope for the first time since Clark was lost. He deeply laments the passing or missing status of their own, but he thinks this new Court of Owls, dedicated to finding out Omega’s secret and causing Gotham to rise from the ashes once more, well, there’s a chance. A chance in Hell, but a chance.

He places a hand softly into Damian’s hair, pulling him back so that he can kiss him, his soul mate, the man who waited for Dick.

“My Robin,” he whispers against Damian’s lips.

“Beloved,” he returns.

“Dads are kissing again,” Terry calls out, even as he dodges a swift kick from Cass.

_Gross_ , signs Cass, mid flip, laughing. 

“Keep it in the bedroom,” Duke grunts.

Dick laughs, sheer joy for all of them.

**Author's Note:**

> BLKE basic rundown: Lex plants kryptonite in the earth then challenges Superman to a debate about humanity as inherently good ( _justice_ ) or evil ( _doom_ ) and the population of the world thinks doom, to even Luthor’s surprise, and Superman is killed instantly. (Don't ask about the science behind mental thoughts conjuring kryptonite, Snyder doesn't know himself, okay.) After that, chaos ensues, no one wins, including humans or the aliens who try to help them and then Omega arrives with the anti-life equation and takes down all the villains and heroes left. Book Two, though, gives us a nice cliffhanger that reveals Dick Grayson is still alive and it was just so damn perfect for the prompt. (｡♥‿♥｡)
> 
> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com)!


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